Southpaw [Ethan Dolan au]

S E V E N

Everything feels cold as Y/N stands in the empty bathroom.

She's leaned over, staring at her reflection blankly as her heart pounds against her ribs, chipping away at the bone so it can burst free. Her clammy hands feel frigid as they cling to the porcelain sink in an attempt to keep herself upright. The only sound through the eerie room is the slow drip of the leaky faucet to her left, and the click of her nails as they tap against the sink in rhythm with the drops of water that splash against the sleek white bowl. She watches herself through the mirror, looking on as her cheeks puff as she exhales slowly, and her grip tightens once her knees begin to wobble, toes curling inside the heels adorned on her feet.

"Come on, Y/N" she whispers to herself, "get it together..."

She rolls her head, the bones in her neck popping sorely, until her brain feels like it's become swollen and heavy, then she drops to watch the remainder of the water from when she'd tossed some to the back of her neck, circle the drain.

A cold sweat has broken out over her entire body once a tsunami of worry leaves her drowning in this bleak room of nothing. There was an hour until the main event, but it felt like only seconds until she was supposed to be sitting in the enormous crowd alongside sixteen-thousand other roaring fans who were all waiting anxiously for the bell to ring.

Y/N didn't think she would find her nerves eating away at her like this. In fact, she felt crazy for even letting this get to her in the first place. Being around this world her entire life, she'd sat through countless fights without a single worry, but this one was obviously different. It's not like she was the one fighting, but the possibility that Ethan could walk into that ring with no certainty that he'd be walking out made her feel like everything was coming to a brutal collision.

She had been walking towards his locker room when the sudden realization had hit her. As a result, she'd turned and made a beeline straight for the bathroom as she felt that sudden tickle in her throat as bile tried to work its way through her body. She nearly collapsed against the sink while trying to swallow everything back down, cranking the water to its coldest, and then splashing it over the back of her neck, and chest, where blood had rushed to the surface of her skin, making her hot among nervous shivers. There was obvious fear in the eyes that stared back at her through the reflection of the mirror as her chest heaved with short breaths, and her body prickled with a type of pain that had her itching to get out of her own skin. She stood there trying to calm herself as she clawed at her tight dress that felt like it was continuously growing tighter until she was suffocating, then she was squeezing her eyes shut tightly as she tried to count to ten through the panic.

Eventually, her breathing had slowed, and she was starting to calm, but there were still some lingering thoughts that remained.

There was an infinite amount of ways in which things could go down tonight. The best would be Nico getting TKO'd in the first round – a quick fight where Ethan barely had to break a sweat. He could walk proudly out of the ring on his own two feet - like she had been hoping for - with the title on his shoulder, collect her from the crowd, and reap in all the benefits he would receive as the new champion. But then there was the worst outcome, a shuddering thought that no woman would ever want to picture happening to the one she loved. She had seen it happen once before when Mitch Palmer collapsed in the ring, his mother and sister bawling their eyes out while the medics scrambled to decide if he should be carried out on a stretcher or in a body bag with the way things were deteriorating. Y/N feels like she might hurl for real this time when she pictures the same discussion being had over Ethan's body as it lies there.

It's a lot for a person to take just one hit, but Ethan's supposed to spend up to forty-seven minutes trying to dodge swing after swing that is thrown his way; and from a man who was clearly going for the kill at that. Every commentator who has spoken about the fight has predicted that it will go the distance – all twelve, three-minute, rounds being fought – and maybe that scares her the most; knowing that Ethan is about to possibly fist fight someone for almost an hour with what seemed like barely a break in between rounds. While she is courageous most of the time, she doesn't think she has it in her to sit there and watch someone try to rearrange what she sees as a perfect face without anxious worry leaving her to fidget and move about the arena.